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CanHasDIY writes "Straight out of 1984, Samsung has unveiled a new series of televisions with integrated cameras and microphones, complete with facial and voice recognition software. Best of all, there appears to be no physical indication of the mic and camera's status, so consumers have no way of knowing when they're being monitored, or by whom... and if you don't find the idea of a TV that watches you creepy enough, apparently Samsung's Terms of Service include a clause allowing third-party apps to make use of the monitoring system, and use the data gathered for their own purposes. Nothing Orwellian about that..."

A sudden hot sweat had broken out all over Biker's body. His face remained
completely inscrutable. Never show dismay! Never show resentment! A single
click of the mouse could give you away. He stood watching while the
moderator raised her cursor above his post and -- one could not say
gracefully, but with remarkable neatness and efficiency -- clicked
the +1, Funny button.

'There, citizens! That's how I want to see you doing it. Watch me again.
I've got thirty-nine tabs open and I've got four alts. Now look.'
She made another post. 'You see my keyboard isn't crufty.
You can all do
it if you want to," she added as she clicked on another post.
'Anyone with under forty-five tabs open is perfectly capable
of getting a solid first post. We don't all have the privilege of
fighting in the front line, but at least we can all keep fit.
Remember our boys in the Chans! And the screening bots in the
NSA datacenters! Just think what they have to put
up with. Now try again. That's better, comrade, that's
much better,' she added encouragingly as Biker, with a violent lunge,
succeeded in achieving a (+5, Funny) on a first post, for the first time in
several years.

If there is a lesson of the various socialist surveillance dystopias, it is that unaided state surveillance is too expensive to survive(y hello thar, East Germany) and tends to stifle out of fear the new technologies that would ultimately help it prosper(rather like the MPAA...)

In good old free world, on the other hand, technological development and the enthusiastic forces of private enterprise produce all the groundwork needed for surveillance and control of the sort that the Evil Empire could only dream of, just waiting to be subpeonaed when needed...

it is that unaided state surveillance is too expensive to survive(y hello thar, East Germany) and tends to stifle out of fear the new technologies that would ultimately help it prosper(rather like the MPAA...)

Couple of things.

1) Cameras are a lot cheaper now.

2) East Germans weren't primarily afraid of the Stasi. They were afraid of their own neighbors. The surveillance state successfully co-opted the populace into doing its grunt work for free. That part hasn't changed, and won't, because at the end of the day, people are finks.

So, yes, unaided state surveillance may be too expensive to be feasible... but it wasn't, and won't, be unaided.

Not to mention the contemplative souls who think it's their god given right to stop*right* at the top of the escalator, suddenly struck by a compulsive need to understand their role in the universe. Ditto for those thoughtful folks who park their carts in the middle of grocery aisle while they weigh the relative merits of "chunky soup" vs. "minestrone"

50 cent roll of electrical tape. Cut a 3x3cm square using scissors. Place it over the camera aperature.

1$ bottle of superglue. The watery runny kind that whicks up into paper, and has a long neck applicator. Lay the television temporarily on a soft, cushioned surface face up, say, on the sofa. Into the microphone grill, gently dribble the runny superglue. Leave in this position for 2 to 3 hours for maximal cone set. Return television to the entertainment center, and feel marginally safer.

The first one is obvious how it works, but the second helps prevent the vibrational movement of the microphone pickup, greatly reducing its sensitivity. Sufficiently glued so that the cone can't move the coil, or the piezo crystal can't be flexed, and you have basically neutered it without opening the system unit.

These little steps are not hard at all. The hard part is staunchly refusing to buy such an intrusive Little whore of a gadget in the first place, as the powers that be all try like mad to get you to swallow that shit pill, and telescreen sensors become standard features.

Shit like this is why I refuse to buy stuff like the kinect. While you can unplug the ethernet cable on your console to ensure the thought police and social services don't see you spanking junior on candid camera, (with audio and motion tracking!), the act of buying an obvious spying device and installing it in your home tells fucked up marketing assholes that you want MOAR spying. I don't want to send that message.

Just don't have any form of traditional television that is ridiculously super expensive and run by assholes that *think* they can control the distribution.

I have Netflix and torrents. Recently, I started doing the torrents again for some TV instead of waiting for the DVD releases which have no overlay advertisements of any kind. The new webrip torrents are awesome. No commercials, and all those annoying overlays are history.

Before you say it is pirating, that is merely a point of view, not a fact. Anything they broadcast into my home is something I can store or obtain in any means I want. They made it free when they put it in my home without my consent, and without my ability to block it. They don't want me to have it? Stop broadcasting it into my house.

Issues of piracy aside, with RSS feeds, seedboxes, and automated processes I have something much better than cable television. So much better. At worst, it is about a 3-6 hour delay from broadcast television.

oh yeah, torrent aren't run by assholes that think they can control the distribution~

Not sure what you mean, but no they are not run by assholes who think they can control the distribution.

It's about the most free market you can get. Nobody controls distribution and the moment you don't deliver what people want you become irrelevant and the next person comes along and provides what people want.

Yeah, I understand. I pay a cable fee right now whether I like it or not. While I just consider it a living expense, it does annoy the living shit out me that those bastards are getting the money. They even tried to double charge me until I had a conniption fit and told them the property management was picking up the tab and I was not paying for shit.

I don't really have a place to move either. Where I live now is the best place within 10 miles of where I work. My on

50 cent roll of electrical tape. Cut a 3x3cm square using scissors. Place it over the camera aperature.

1$ bottle of superglue. The watery runny kind that whicks up into paper, and has a long neck applicator. Lay the television temporarily on a soft, cushioned surface face up, say, on the sofa. Into the microphone grill, gently dribble the runny superglue. Leave in this position for 2 to 3 hours for maximal cone set. Return television to the entertainment center, and feel marginally safer.

>

Ooops. yo've just invalidated your warranty

From TFA Samsung says:

Samsung assumes no responsibility, and shall not be liable, in connection with whether any such products or services will be appropriate, functional or supported for the Samsung products or services available in your country.

and

Want to read the owner’s manual for your new Samsung TV? This is accomplished by download, as Samsung stopped including printed owner’s manuals at least two years ago. However, before you may download the manual, you must first agree to the following online statement:
Samsung assumes no responsibility, and shall not be liable, in connection with whether any such products or services will be appropriate, functional or supported for the Samsung products or services available in your country.

In Australia, not only would these statements not have any legal standing, I suspect one or both may actually be in violation of consumer protection laws.

If the AU govt keeps on the track they are at emulating the US, its only a matter of time before you get stuffed with "binding arbitration", and abusive EULAs like we are, and which consumer protection laws prohibiting such shennanigans only apply to SMALL business.

As for voiding the warantee.... who said my desire to avoid opening the case was to avoid voiding the warantee? I just wanted to avoid damaging the set on accident, and to minimize aesthetic marring.

50 cent roll of electrical tape. Cut a 3x3cm square using scissors. Place it over the camera aperature.

1$ bottle of superglue. The watery runny kind that whicks up into paper, and has a long neck applicator. Lay the television temporarily on a soft, cushioned surface face up, say, on the sofa. Into the microphone grill, gently dribble the runny superglue. Leave in this position for 2 to 3 hours for maximal cone set. Return television to the entertainment center, and feel marginally safer.

The first one is obvious how it works, but the second helps prevent the vibrational movement of the microphone pickup, greatly reducing its sensitivity. Sufficiently glued so that the cone can't move the coil, or the piezo crystal can't be flexed, and you have basically neutered it without opening the system unit.

These little steps are not hard at all. The hard part is staunchly refusing to buy such an intrusive Little whore of a gadget in the first place, as the powers that be all try like mad to get you to swallow that shit pill, and telescreen sensors become standard features.

Shit like this is why I refuse to buy stuff like the kinect. While you can unplug the ethernet cable on your console to ensure the thought police and social services don't see you spanking junior on candid camera, (with audio and motion tracking!), the act of buying an obvious spying device and installing it in your home tells fucked up marketing assholes that you want MOAR spying. I don't want to send that message.

Or... just don't by a Samsung tv maybe? I'm thinking this might be the simpler option.

Then start up a new bug-less brand and make a LOT of noise about the fact that/your/ TVs aren't watching your children watch saturday morning cartoons in their underwear and streaming it over the internet.
You will rake it in hand over fist

“There was nothing Elvis had against Robert Goulet. They were friends,” Kern said. “But Elvis just shot out things on a random basis.”There were no reports Presley hurt anybody with his gun slinging, but he was known to have a fascination with firearms. He converted part of a rear building at the estate into a firing range.

There were no reports Presley hurt anybody with his gun slinging, but he was known to have a fascination with firearms.

You all know Elvis was American, right?

MiB said he was an alien and went home. And as far as I'm concerned, Tommy Lee generally makes one hell of a lot more sense than pretty much everything else I've seen recently. For instance, go to Wikipedia and plug in "MiB". It takes you to Mebibyte [wikipedia.org], which just sucks horribly.

Common response: "If you're not breaking the law, why wouldn't you let the cops search your car? (Or track you with cameras?) (Or record all your internet actions?)" -- It's amazing how easily americans are to give up their freedom to the government tyrants.

A related sci-fi book: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Light_of_Other_Days [wikipedia.org] "The Light of Other Days is a 2000 science fiction novel written by Stephen Baxter based on a synopsis by Arthur C. Clarke, which explores the development of wormhole technology to the point where information can be passed instantaneously between points in the space-time continuum.... The novel examines the philosophical issues that arise from the world's population (increasingly suffering from ecological and political disturbances) being aware that they could be under constant observation by anyone, or that they could observe anyone without their knowledge...."

There are a couple other similar sci-fi stories as well, including one about "Slow Glass" by Bob Shaw with the same name as that novel.http://strick.net/blog/041103.html [strick.net]

This, or disable them. Snip a wire or two, cut a solder trace, it's probably not tough. In fact, covering the ports with electrical tape would disable the camera completely, and most likely impair the microphone to a great degree.

Your standard coaxial cable hookup doubles as a physical layer support for ethernet. Just takes a clandestine cable modem being integrated into the box to report back for "quality assurance", and you have a connection that cannot be "unplugged" unless you want to ditch your cable provider, or attach a frequency scrubber in-line before the TV. (Potentially eliminating your ability to use PPV, remote DVR, etc.)

Even better, have it work over the cellular network. It's feasible to have a TV that doesn't hook up to the cable system (satellite TV, Free OTA, etc), but most people live in an area that is accessible by some form of cellular service. As long as the thought police could log into you TV and watch and listen to you (even at low quality) they can do their job. Unless you don't buy a TV (another reason for you to be a suspect) or make your house a faraday cage, then they basically have access to your house.

Hey Anonymous Coward - once they invent some kind of "wave" that travels "wirelessly" through the air and transmits information... Then I bet you'll really be embarrassed! Think about it - we could possibly receive information WITHOUT A WIRE. I'm going to call it.. the radio.

The will just iPad it, you want a fun tv, you will sign in once- they get your face, modem details (mac), sync it with your bookmarks, browser, cookies.
After you have set up the language, network, colour, sent data back you might get the option to unplug your TV from the network.
Until then your stuck in setup;)

We already know what we will do with it. What we've done with "it" throughout history. Use it [to] crush human nature until humans get sick of it and start slaughtering each other. Then we'll use it for decent uses and people will look back and be shocked by our ignorance and brutality.

Now that's a depressing thought, not that I disagree. V-1s and V-2s lead to the Apollo program and got Neill on the Moon.

Just remember, just because you have a bomb, doesn't mean you have to use it. "Withdrawal is the better part of valour" I think is the way the saying goes.

As with my cars I would obey the rules of the warranty (i.e. change the oil every 7500 miles even though synthetic oil is good for 10,000+), and when it runs-out THEN I would make permanent modifications. So I wouldn't be cracking-open the TV immediately; I'd just be taping over the lens that first year.

The difference between this and that is that these TVs and the laptops are physically capable of spying but not made to do that. The schools themselves installed software which spied on the kids. These TVs are perfectly fine. However... That doesn't mean they can't be made to be otherwise.

You watch the TV.
The TV watches you watching the TV.
Some ad agency flunky watches the TV watching you watch the TV.
His monitor watches him watch the TV watching you watch the TV.
His supervisor watches the monitor watching him watch the TV watching you watch the TV.

1.) rig a secondary/tertiary monitor output on a nearby desktop and wire it to the TV's camera/audio input.2.) set the computer output to a nonstop 24/7 loop of "Friday" by Rebecca Black, along with a slide show that alternates between Goatse, 2 girls 1 cup, and horse porn.3.) bask in the fact that somwhere, someone is regretting the release of this technology.4.) Don't EVER cross the wires from step 1.5.) Profit.

I hope it takes a page from the Wii and reminds people to stop watching for a while. They could couple it with shots of the consumer looking like a total zombie to convince them to get the heck up and move around for a while.

that netflix-streaming laptop has a camera and mic too. throw in a coupon, offer a free "app" or "show" or something to get their attention. if all else fails just do it anyway. we all know the repercussions for a major multinational conglomerate violating your personal privacy basically amount to a dog and pony show anyhow.

Yeah, who needs oversight committees for corporations. They never do anything wrong, trust the free market, because you can always buy a TV from a manufacturer who DOESN'T do this, until they all do it because there's so much profit to be made by selling the data. Of course I suppose the free market is still at work here, because people could decide between NOT watching spy-TV or watching it and giving up their privacy, TV isn't a constitutional RIGHT. Hmm... I appear to have confused myself.

Please explain to me why not having an indicator light is significant. The manufacturer controls how the entire thing is built, so it could also easily build in a function to use the camera but without making any status light come on. As I type this the status light of the camera in my Lenovo laptop is off.. But is the camera off, really?

Bit of a silly article. If you don't like web cams (or any camera) then just say so. Makes no sense to fully trust Logitech but not Samsung or anyone else.

Encore for the tinfoilers: every iPhone comes with one or two cameras. And you really don't know about the software that runs it.

Best of all, there appears to be no physical indication of the mic and camera's status, so consumers have no way of knowing when they're being monitored, or by whom... and if you don't find the idea of a TV that watches you creepy enough, apparently Samsung's Terms of Service include a clause allowing third-party apps to make use of the monitoring system, and use the data gathered for their own purposes.

Did you somehow manage to miss that part of the summary? It's only most of the summary, after all. In short, there's plenty to see here, only it's third parties doing the seeing, and you apparently don't get any say in when they do the seeing, or what they use the footage for.

But are you sure that LED is not controlled by software (drivers)? Because otherwise, someone with control over the OS could disable that feature and record unannounced, while giving you a false sense of security.

It's simply convergence. Think of the television as a large smartphone. In the near future when you sit down at the Christmas feast you will be able to share with friends and family in far flung places. You'll be able to attend meetings and interact at lectures. You can already do this at your pc? Then you already understand, just think of interacting in the lounge-room rather than the basement. The television is just an oversized monitor now, it's just getting incrementally smarter (and bigger).

Besides it's not like these companies have all of the staff and resources necessary to watch and monitor the thousands to millions of TV users all at once.

You're probably right. I mean, it's not as if clandestine government agencies are building huge data warehouses [slashdot.org] or anything, right?

OK, so maybe they are; but hey, the top clandestine government agent promises he's not spying on you, [slashdot.org] and what possible reason is there to not believe every word the country's top spy-master says?

Interesting, I use a low end cell phone with no "smart" features, or a camera. Naturally it has a mic, it is a phone.My computer has no webcam installed, my notebook has a yellow stickie label over the camera.To deal with snooping on my web search history I have a perl script that does an lpw get on random words from the dictionary and clicks a random number of links randomly spaced apart. This generates search noise.-nB

I don't know about you, but I have a TV on my dresser and it gives me a great view from my bed. I know from experience (and from mirrored closet doors) that the view back is pretty god damn fantastic too. Not sure I want most strangers to see all that, though. Just the special ones.

Me. I have a Sony IP TV with Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, Crackle and a host of other apps. I pretty much only use the Netflix app, but I use it a lot. It saves me the time and heat/expense/hassle of having to turn on my PS3. I just wish I could get HBO Go on it.... hmm.. maybe that's available on the PS3.